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This is the shocking moment two children were filmed sitting on the crash barrier in the middle of a motorway.

Catherine McGraph, 62, was driving home to North Wales after visiting friends in Wigan when she filmed the incident on a dashboard camera.

Worried motorists dialled 999 after seeing the youngsters on the central reservation of the M56 as cars sped past at 70mph.

Others saw the children - thought to be a boy and a girl in their early teens - sprinting across the carriageway near to some woods.

Police used motorway signs to slow the traffic and dashed to the scene after the alarm was raised at teatime on Sunday.

But the children could not be found.

Ms McGraph was heading westbound close to J12 near Preston Brook in Cheshire when she saw the children - the same motorway stretch where Kieran Coupe, seven, and his friend Guy Davies, six, died eight years ago.

Mrs McGraph told the Manchester Evening News, a sister paper of the Chester Chronicle: “As I was driving along, I saw something on the central reservation. As I got closer, I realised it was two children. I thought they were going to run across.

“I started to beep my horn to warn other motorists. The children were sitting on the crash barrier. I was shocked. It was very unsettling and disturbing.”

Mrs McGraph was so shocked by what she had seen that she pulled over and dialled 999.

She said: “I was going at 70mph when I saw them. It would have been difficult for drivers to stop in time if they had tried to run across.

“It was a Sunday afternoon, but the motorway was busy. I was shocked by their stupidity. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”

Some witnesses said they thought the children were aged between eight or 10, while others said they were about 14.

Police graded Sunday’s incident as a Grade 1 emergency and arrived at the scene in under 10 minutes. They searched the area, but the children had already vanished.

A spokesman for Cheshire Police said: “Motorways are not places for children to play. Entering the carriageway is extremely dangerous.”